Cultivating A Passion For Purple

January 18, 2002|By Robert Smaus Garden Correspondent

On a recent summer evening, there were only two empty folding chairs left at a packed meeting of the Culver City, Calif., Garden Club. The crowd was there to hear member Jorge Ochoa talk about passion flowers, those amazingly complicated, almost-hypnotic blooms that fascinate gardeners and nongardeners alike.

Compared with ordinary flowers such as daisies, passion flowers look as if they're from another planet. Viewed from above, their intricate and symmetrical construction resembles a fanciful Indian mandala, and they seem to radiate some kind of cosmic energy. The name comes from the sacred symbolism seen in the flower's parts, which reminded the 17th century Spanish discoverers of the Passion of Christ. This is a very metaphysical flower.

At the meeting, Ochoa displayed some of the more unusual kinds of vines on two long tables pushed together. He also brought along some of the many products made from the fruit or flowers.

"I wanted people to know they weren't just pretty flowers," he said.

He had boxes of herbal remedies -- dried flowers and leaves -- that are used by some as mild sedatives. A few even believe the plant to be aphrodisiacal, perhaps misunderstanding what the "passion" in passion flower means. The plant's flowers also are used in a number of herbal hair products, including shampoo and hair spray. In the tropics, the fruit, or "granadilla," is found in many foods.

Scattered around the meeting room were cut flowers, which Ochoa brought from his home in South-Central Los Angeles. He invited everyone to take a flower or two home, apologizing that most passion flowers stay open for only a day and would be wilted by morning.

At his family's home, passion flower vines grow on every fence and wall and completely roof over the front yard. Ochoa, 27, was born in Mexico but has lived in this neighborhood since he was 9. He discovered passion flowers at a sister-in-law's home in Culver City, but he found his second variety in his own neighborhood and a third a few blocks away.

He went to the Arboretum of Los Angeles County to see more but found that his collection of three was larger than its collection of one. The arboretum library found him an authoritative book. (Passion Flowers by John Vanderplank [MIT Press, 2000] is the current edition.)

That was eight years ago, and his intense interest in passion flowers led him to study horticulture for two years at Long Beach City College and two more years at California Polytechnic, Pomona, where he earned his bachelor's degree in horticulture in 2000. He works as a park manager intern for the Los Angeles parks department.

Ochoa says passiflora are native mostly to the cooler, wetter parts of Central and South America.

There are isolated species scattered around the world -- in Africa, Australia, on the U.S. East Coast and even one in nearby Baja, Mexico. There are something like 500 kinds, and Ochoa has managed to collect about 60, "with 20 in the mail."

Ochoa joined the Passiflora Society International (www.pas siflora.org), which is based at Butterfly World in Coconut Creek. Only a few kinds are available at nurseries, so he grows most from seeds that he gets from the society's seed bank.

Ochoa is interested only in the "species" passifloras, which are the wild, unhybridized kinds.

"I really prefer their natural beauty," he says.

He does grow one hybrid -- the dramatic, frilly cultivar named `Incense,' whose flowers are among the most beautiful. This perennial can take cold weather and has 2-inch, egg-shaped edible fruit with pulp that is considered tasty.

All his favorites, however, are wildlings, such as the Brazilian Passiflora actinia (also sold as P. phoenicea or as `Ruby Glow'), which also happens to be one he recommends for neophytes. Dramatic, flaring flowers have a circular mass of slim filaments that are striped purple and white.

He recommends this vine because it "doesn't get too big," he says, although this is the one that covers his front yard, and it tolerates cold.

One passion flower that can become a pest is the common P. caerulea with the big, orange, edible fruit. It's the "sweet granadilla" used in many foodstuffs and often is surrounded by clouds of butterflies as the larva of the pretty Gulf Fritillary feeds exclusively on passifloras, this one in particular.

Because most passion flower vines are large, they need something to clamber on -- a trellis or a fence (they quickly cover chain link), where they can provide shade or a background for the garden. Twisting tendrils hold them fast.

Many plants can grow to 30 feet long. Ochoa cuts his back a little every year, just to keep them in bounds and to remove dead growth. He cautions never to cut them back hard, which can be fatal to the plants.

He waters once a week or more but fertilizes once a year, in spring. The plants prefer humid weather and temperatures that are not extreme. They do better in plain, unimproved, fast-draining alkaline dirt and do not like amended soils. It might take two years for them to start flowering heavily or to produce fruit. But don't worry too much about culture, because Ochoa said, "No passiflora is hard to grow."

Most like full sun, but some will grow in shade. Passiflora trifasciata, another Ochoa recommends for beginners, grows in complete shade against his family's house. It stays quite small, under 8 feet tall, and it has spectacular leaves that look like dinosaur tracks, colored burgundy and green on top and purple underneath. The flowers are very small, as is the fruit.

Many leaves have little nectar glands on them that appear to be a pest problem, but Ochoa said they are thought to be a defense mechanism.

Robert Smaus is a writer for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Co. newspaper.